San Francisco Giants: 5 things to watch for in the second half

The second half of the 2019 MLB season will begin later this week. Ahead we’ve highlight five things to watch for with the San Francisco Giants.

With a 41-48 record, the San Francisco Giants find themselves in last place in the NL West standings at the All-Star break.

Despite a 15-10 record in their last 25 games and a 7-3 stretch to close out the first half, there’s still a good chance that in the next month they will be sellers as the trade deadline approaches.

The talent left on the roster after the deadline passes with be a huge factor in how well they are able to perform down the stretch.  With key players like Madison Bumgarner, Will Smith, and several others on the trading block, there is a very real chance that the Giants could lay an egg in the second half.

At the same time, even if they do fall out of the race, there is some intriguing young talent on the roster worth assessing as they begin preparing for the future. The final few months of the season will be important in lining up the roster for 2020 and beyond.

Regardless of how things go from a win-loss standpoint, there are specific things worth keeping an eye on coming out of the All-Star break.

Ahead we’ve highlighted five things to watch for in the second half.

1. Will the younger players become staples?

The San Francisco Giants have seen a number of younger players emerge from the minor league ranks this year.

On the pitching side of things, Shaun Anderson and Tyler Beede have both shown the potential to be solid MLB starters.

However, as we saw with Dereck Rodriguez, a solid debut does not guarantee continued success. The second half may tell us a lot about both of those young pitchers, and whether they can hold down a rotation spot in 2020 and beyond.

Hitters tend to figure out younger pitchers in their second years simply because there is more tape on them so they know what they are up against. It’s then up to the pitchers to make the necessary adjustments.

Aside from their performance, it will also be worth keeping an eye on whether the Giants decide to limit either pitcher’s innings total. New team president Farhan Zaidi has a history of preserving young arms, so we may see both Anderson and Beede rested or even sent down to the minors at some point in the second half to ensure they are not overworked.

When it comes to the lineup, the outfielders will be interesting to watch. Austin Slater has been on fire since he was called up, Mike Yastrzemski has shown flashes of power, and the previously injured Steven Duggar still offers an intriguing mix of speed and defense in center field. It is possible that this could be the starting outfield of the immediate future.

However, with Kevin Pillar hitting better of late and once again manning center field, it’s possible Duggar could spend some time at Triple-A until rosters expand in September.

Manager Bruce Bochy appears to be comfortable with the platoon he has going with Yastrzemski starting against righties and Slater against lefties, so we should get to see a lot of both players in the second half.

The San Francisco Giants have a lot of young talent that is going to get the opportunity to shine in the second half. Will they shine or will they falter?

2. Will the veterans get hot?

If the San Francisco Giants are going to have any success the rest of the year, they are going to need the likes of Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, and Evan Longoria to rebound from middling first-half performances.

For the majority of the first half, all of those players were hitting dismally. While the overall statistics still don’t look very good for any of them, the numbers don’t tell the full story.

Longoria has been tearing the cover off the ball lately with five home runs in the last week and a half, and Posey is starting to show signs of coming around of late.

With bloated contracts and middling season stats, it’s unlikely the Giants will be able to find takers for any of these veterans on the trade market, so for better or worse they will be a key part of the team’s short-term outlook.

It would be nice to see the recent offensive surge that’s been led by Longoria makes its way to some of these other veterans. At the very least, improved numbers in the second half from that group would go a long way toward keeping the offense from bottoming out once again.

3. What will the starting rotation look like?

The question of whether or not Madison Bumgarner will still be with the team after the July 31 trade deadline will hang over the San Francisco Giants until he’s either dealt or Aug. 1 arrives.

He’s not the pitcher he was in his prime, but he’s still the clear ace of the staff, and without him, the team’s best starter would be *checks notes and gulps* Jeff Samardzija.

We have already touched on Anderson and Beede as emerging young arms in the starting rotation, but Samardzija and fellow veteran Drew Pomeranz will also be interesting to watch in the second half.

The Shark has been respectable in the first half, posting a record of 6-7 with a 4.01 ERA. While he is certainly not an ace, he will without question be the team’s most reliable starter in the likely event that Bumgarner is traded.

He still has another year on his contract, so a solid second half would help us all breathe a bit easier about the state of the rotation going into next year.

On the other hand, Pomeranz has been terrible for much of the year. A few solid outings briefly suggested that he may have turned a corner, but his last start was more of what we are used to with four earned runs allowed in four innings of work.

Another storyline to watch will be whether Dereck Rodriguez can earn back a spot in the rotation. He has had a massively disappointing second year after a breakout 2018 and he’s currently trying to regain some form in the minor leagues.

He looked like a potential cornerstone piece last season when he was at his best, and the second half will be important in gauging how he fits into the team’s plans going forward.

4. Are Alex Dickerson and Kevin Pillar here to stay?

So far, Alex Dickerson and Kevin Pillar have been the two most successful trade pickups made during Farhan Zaidi’s tenure. They have brought some welcome stability to an outfield that has seen a lot of turnover in the last few years.

After coming over in a trade with the San Diego Padres, Dickerson splashed onto the scene with a grand slam in his first game with the Giants.

Pillar, who was acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays in an early April trade, has put together a respectable year at the plate and he’s been hitting much better of late after a slow start.

The second half could be a good indicator of whether the San Francisco Giants front office feel they are long-term solutions in the outfield.

Pillar has one year of arbitration remaining and Dickerson is under team control through 2022, so both will be back next season unless the team decides to cut them loose.

If Pillar can continue providing value both offensively and defensively, and Dickerson can stay hot at the plate, then there is no question they will be sticking around.

If their production drops off, they could wind up being just two more names in what has been an outfield carousel for several years now.

We’ll have to wait and see how it all unfolds, but in the short term, these two trades have helped the Giants out a great deal in stabilizing the outfield.